Accessibility

Colchester Borough Council aims to make this website accessible to all visitors, ensuring it meets the needs of disabled users, and is viewable in the widest possible range of web-browsing technology. To achieve this goal, the Colchester Borough Council website was created in accordance with certain web standards and government guidelines.

All pages on this site validate as XHTML 1.1, as determined by the W3C Markup Validation Service. This is important to ensure that the website has a consistent appearance and functionality across all modern web browsers.

All pages on this site use valid Cascading Stylesheets (CSS), as determined by the W3C CSS Validation Service. This is important to ensure that the website has a consistent appearance across all modern web browsers.

BrowseAloud

Colchester Borough Council's website is BrowseAloud enabled which means that you can have information on this site read aloud to you for free whether you are using a Smartphone, Tablet, PC or Mac.

What is BrowseAloud?BrowseAloud is a suite of products that provides reading support on websites. BrowseAloud reads website content out loud, highlighting each word as it is spoken in a high quality, human-sounding voice. Other features include:

Dual-Colour Highlighting

Talking Translator

Secure Site Reading

Text Magnification

MP3 Maker

PDF Reading

Talking Dictionary

Screen Masking

International Languages

More than 7,000 websites use BrowseAloud, so once you have it on your device you can listen to all of these websites too.

Who BrowseAloud Helps? BrowseAloud helps website visitors who require online reading support and those who simply prefer to listen to information instead of reading it. BrowseAloud is particularly useful for those with print disabilities such as dyslexia or mild visual impairments and those with English as a second language.

How do I get BrowseAloud? Click on the wording 'Listen with BrowseAloud' that appears at the top of our homepage to launch the BrowseAloud toolbar. This toolbar provides instant high quality speech at the touch of a button - no need to download anything.

To use BrowseAloud's fully-featured version, which includes a dictionary, a translator, an MP3 maker, a text magnifier and reads secure web pages and PDFs, visit the BrowseAloud website to download a small application, free of charge.

Support with using BrowseAloud A full range of support services are provided for BrowseAloud:Web: BrowseAloud SupportEmail: support@browsealoud.comTel: 0800 328 7910

Babelfish also translates websites from English to other languages however Babelfish also has the ability to translate individual pages. Paste a url of the web page into the translation box and have the individual web page translated for you.

Please note:These services are intended as a rough guide and Colchester Borough Council cannot be held responsible for any errors in the translated text.

Text Phone

If you can't hear or speak on the phone, we can help. You can contact us via Textphone. To access this service, you need to have a Text Phone at home, or be able to access one. An operator will relay your message to us verbally, and our response back to you in text form.

The number to use for Textphone is 18001, followed by the number you require. The .

If you don't have a Text Phone you can still have your message relayed to us via an operator on a computer, tablet or smartphone. You can find out more by visiting the Next Generation Text Servicewebsite. General information and advice is available from the national organisation, Action on Hearing Loss.